Day 142 - 26 Jun 95 - Page 31
1 I believe, in the early 80s all the way through to reaching
2 this agreement that sporadically there were activities by
3 this union -- not by our employees, but by this union.
4
5 Q. Are you aware of, if you like, intensification of the
6 union's campaign and calling for solidarity in different
7 countries and boycott activities around the end of the
8 1980s?
9 A. No, I am not. As I think I mentioned, there was in the
10 early 80s -- the reason Mike Thorell's name is familiar to
11 me -- there was picketing I believe at his store by the
12 union, not by his employees -- his employees did not
13 participate in that whatsoever -- and that there were from
14 time to time throughout the 80s as negotiations were going
15 on that there would be activity by the union to put
16 pressure on the operators to agree to what the union
17 wanted.
18
19 Q. I am not sure if you answered the question; maybe I did not
20 explain it effectively.
21
22 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Part of the problem may be that if you just
23 ask if there was an intensification of the union's
24 campaign, it is jolly difficult to answer because it is so
25 imprecise, is it not?
26
27 MR. MORRIS: Yes.
28
29 MR. JUSTICE BELL: If you can give an example of something which
30 you think is significant which happened, Mr. Stein may be
31 able to help.
32
33 MR. MORRIS: Yes. (To the witness): Are you aware that some
34 six months before the final signing of the agreement in May
35 1989 (which is accepted by Michael Thorell), in September
36 1988 McDonald's broke off negotiations with the union that
37 had been going on for about a year? They had reached an
38 impasse?
39 A. I want to answer your question, but throughout the 80s,
40 and it goes over many years, there were many negotiating
41 sessions. There were many times when the discussions broke
42 off over what you call an impasse. Then there were times
43 when the union and the operators got back together again
44 and tried to resolve things and then they would break off
45 again. So, there was many times that I am aware of that
46 there was on again, off again, as both sides tried to reach
47 agreement.
48
49 Q. I will put to you our case -- it is not very controversial
50 -- that in September 1988, as it says in our pleadings,
51 negotiations broke down. The union particularly launched
52 an international publicity campaign and boycott campaign,
53 support from other unions in boycotting work on McDonald's
54 stores, or whatever, so there was an intensification of
55 that ongoing 1980s dispute, if you like, and boycott
56 campaign from September 1988 until May 1989 which you
57 would, presumably, know?
58 A. What I am trying tell you is I am not aware of an
59 international campaign as you are talking about, but there
60 was activities that would go up, it would go down,
